Atheism in High School

[Skipper]

Anyways, on an unrelated so far note, The only person I've met that wasn't a Christian/Mormon or an Atheist was one Hindu person and his family. They all seemed to be perfectly fine with me being an atheist. Is that normal for Hindus generally, like, is it only Abrahamic religions that get so uppity about it?

You know, it's funny you should mention that. In my personal studies (Which is formal and fairly extensive) of the different religions the Abrahamic religions are very unique. They all arose in the same area, for basically the same reason. An intrusive conquering force had created a large serf underclass that had limited rights and few freedoms. With the Hebrews it was the Assyrians and Persians, with the Christians it was the Romans, and again with the Islamic faith it was a Persian, patriarchal society that had risen up.

They arose out of a need to protect the indigenous groups from invaders, to create a very clear distinction between who was "ok" and who was not, and what ideals to follow. In many ways the books were civil rights movements, freeing people from the tyranny they lived under, though typically this freedom extended only to people within this new religion, a type of in-group/out-group moral mentality that permeates throughout history. An interesting note, the original word for Hebrew person and gentile were different, with only one granting the luxury of divine embodiment.

But I noticed the Eastern religions, the Native American religions, grew out of a different purpose, and there are still wars and caste systems, but in terms of the idea they will attack outsiders for non-belief isn't so much of a concern for them, the religion isn't rooted in survival.

Feel free to object to this, but this has been my personal conclusion. So yes, in my experience again, its almost exclusively Monotheistic Abrahamic followers who tend to get defensive, and it's my thought that the reason for this stems from the very origins of the religions themselves.

I agree. While travelling Europe I met two Americans in this one hostel in Germany. One was a Christian one was Hindu. When asked about my beliefs I told them both I was atheist, the Hindu barely seemed to even register it, where as the Christian spent the rest of the time I was at that hostel trying to bring up my beliefs and then telling me no matter how good a life I led, unless I full accepted the lord I was going to go to hell. Which resulted in myself after a couple of days telling him to "go fuck yourself!"

In regards to high school, I think in the U.K at least, experience with people my own age from my high school years was positive when talking about religion and such. Not many over here are overt about hteir beliefs and to be honest I don't think many held any sorts of beliefs. The only people who I knew who were vocal about their religion were a few muslims. I think luckily Atheism is a much more excepted stand point this side of the pond, especially amongst my generation, but that could be due to living in a very liberal city. I dunno.